Former
San Diego Padres
shortstop Everth Cabrera capped a two-run comeback for Yucatan in the
bottom
half of the ninth inning with a walkoff single that scored Ruben Sosa
from
second base, handing the Leones a 6-5 win over Quintana Roo Sunday in
Game Two
of the Mexican League's South Division championship series in Merida.The victory knotted the Leones-Tigres
catfight at one game apiece as 13,147 spectators looked on at Parque
Kukulkan.Cabrera, Sosa and Jesus "Cacao"
Valdez each had three hits for the winners while C.J. Retherford belted
a pair
of homers (one of them a three-run bom) for the Tigres, who won
Saturday's
opener, 4-1, behind the complete game pitching of Henderson Alvarez.

As
Cabrera was
performing his heroics in Yucatan, the defending champion Tijuana Toros
were
delivering a 15-2 beatdown to the Monterrey Sultanes to tie the LMB
North title
series at one gabe apiece.Dustin Martin
cracked a grand slam in the top of the second off Sultanes starter
Felipe
Gonzalez to highlight a five-run inning that gave the Toros a lead they
would
widen as the game went on.Martin
finished the night with six RBIs, Cyle Hankerd contributed a three-run
homer to
the cause and batting champion Isaac Rodriguez went 4-for-6 with three
runs
scored and two more driven in for manager Pedro Mere's men.TJ starter Kyle Lobstein pitched six
pressure-free innings, allowing one run on three hits while striking
out five
batsmen to send 21,909 fans at Estadio Monterrey home disappointed.Sultanes reliever Gonzalo Ochoa had a
nightmarish appearance in the seventh frame, allowing six runs on five
hits
(including Hankerd's roundtripper) and a walk before being pulled by
skipper
Roberto Kelly with one out remaining, which Marcos Rivas mercifully
recorded.

Yucatan
and Quintana Roo
both reached the LMB South finals by dispatching Leon and Mexico City,
respectively, in five games.Sebastian
Valle's two-run homer gave Leones starter Jose Samayoa (6 innings, 1
run) all
the support needed in Yucatan's 5-1 win over the Bravos last Monday in
Leon
while Jason Bourgeois' single drove in Angel Erro with the game winner
in the
bottom of the tenth in the Tigres' 6-5 win over the Diablos Rojos the
same
night in Cancun.The victory had to be
doubly sweet for Tigres owners Fernando and Linda Valenzuela, who've
had their
own well-chronicled issues with the Red Devils organization over the
past year.

Monterrey
had to go the
extra mile to win their LMB North semifinal series over Monclova in six
games.The Acereros outlasted the
Sultanes, 7-6, last Monday at home with the aid of four homers,
including a
two-run shot coming off the bat of former Yankees outfielder Ruben
Rivera, now
44, who hit .385 for the series.Monterrey wrapped things up two nights later by a 6-3 count over
the
Steelers as veteran third baseman Agustin Murillo had a big night for
the
Sultanes, socking a pair of homers (one of them a three-run dinger off
Acereros
starter Mauricio Lara in the bottom of the fifth.The
39-year-old Lara had sailed through the
first four frames without being scratched for a run before running into
trouble
in the fifth.Tijuana had earlier
eliminated Aguascalientes in a four-game sweep, giving the Toros a week
to rest
before opening their series with Monterrey Saturday.

Both
division
championship series will resume Tuesday night after Monday's travel
day, as the
LMB South title set shifts to Cancun for Game Three while Tijuana will
host
Game Three in the LMB North series.

BRAVOS
LATE WITH PAYMENT, LOSE SS ZAZUETA TO DOS LAREDOS

Your
friendly bank
officer issuing a foreclosure notice has nothing on the Monclova
Acereros, who
waited just one week for a late installment check from the Leon Bravos
before
reclaiming shortstop Amadeo Zazueta from the Guanajuato team and
immediately
trading him to the Dos Laredos Tecolotes.

According
to Puro Beisbol editor Fernando
Ballesteros, the Bravos agreed to a series of payments to Monclova as
part of
an offseason deal that sent the 32-year-old Culiacan product to Leon
after
batting .341 for the Steelers last summer, socking 9 homers and driving
in 64
runs over 101 regular season contests in 2017.The trade surprised many Mexican League observers at the time,
but the
Acereros were committed to Puebla Shuttle passenger Alberto Carreon and
LMB
veteran Kevin Flores, who spent three years with Yucatan after nine
summers
with the Quintana Roo Tigres before arriving in Estadio Monclova as a
free
agent last winter.

Instead,
Carreon never
got untracked with the Acereros and was shuttled back to sister team
Puebla
during the Spring 2018 season while Flores ended up playing just 27 of
57
games, batting .320 with 7 RBIs.And
Zazueta?He became one of the faces of
the Leon franchise by batting .356 with 5 homers, 9 steals and a
team-high 46
runs scored while adding some adventurous defense in the 6 spot with 10
errors
in 55 games.Despite being one of the
Liga's more troubled franchises, the Bravos have managed to reach the
playoffs
in each of their first two seasons and Zazueta was a key member of this
Spring's squad.

However,
Zazueta
apparently wasn't so important to either the Leon front office or
Arturo
Blanco, the Potosinos transportation company majordomo and one of the
MXL's
wealthier owners.Ballesteros reports
that Monclova allowed a week for the Bravos' June installation check to
arrive
before taking Zazueta back for a nanosecond prior to shipping him off
to the
Tecos in exchange for pitcher Jose Pina, a useful righty who's gone
45-37 with
a 3.52 ERA in six seasons pitching for mostly dreadful teams in
Tabasco, Veracruz
and Dos Laredos (he was 4-5 with a 4.07 ERA this Spring for the Tecos,
who had
the worst record in the Liga at 18-39.The two-time All-Star is a much better pitcher than even his
decent
stats would indicate and the 6'2" Dominican will finally give Acereros
star Josh Lowey a decent complement in the starting rotation.While their moves were definitely draconian,
it's hard to blame Monclova for making them after a second straight
first-round
playoff exit.Owner Gerardo Benavides
has proven that, if nothing else, he is a hands-on guy who'll make a
move at
the drop of a hat to improve his hometown team (often at the expense of
his
Puebla franchise).

But what
of the
Bravos?This would be embarrassing to
any self-aware ballclub seeking to build credibility among an
already-skeptical
fan base.Manager (as of this week) Luis
Rivera will likely move Niko Vasquez (.341/10/36) back to his natural
position
of shortstop with little drop-off in production, but he's left with
former
Diamondbacks prospect Joe Munoz, a 2014 Midwest League all-star, at
third base
for Fall 2018 after Munoz played just seven games for Tijuana and Leon
in
Spring.The bigger question mark may be
regarding what credibility the Bravos have with Leon baseball fans
after
letting one of their best players leave with nothing in return but even
more
egg on its face after yet another front office snafu.

One more
note worth
passing along.Ballesteros reports that
Zazueta may choose to not report to Dos Laredos, one of the few
franchises more
rudderless than the one he was reclaimed from.This may all end up in the lap of Liga president Javier Salinas,
who
certainly doesn't need any more problems in what has been a tough first
year
for the former Liga MX soccer marketer after replacing Plinio Escalante
at the
top of the circuit last September.

MANAGERS
OUT IN MONCLOVA, OAXACA; CASTRO NEW SKIPPER IN TABASCO

After showing remarkable
restraint throughout
the Spring 2018 season, Mexican League owners are using June to make
some
corrections of their dugout bosses.Two
more managers lost their jobs over the past week after only one
midseason
firing in Dos Laredos, when the Tecolotes cut Eddie Castro loose last
month.After Tabasco fired skipper
Alfonso "Houston" Jimenez in a rather puzzling move, given that
Jimenez spun some silk from a sow's ear of a roster (Castro will be
Jimenez'
replacement n Villahermosa), Oaxaca severed ties with first-year
manager Jose
Luis "Borrego" Sandoval, a 2008 MVP shortstop for Mexico City during
his playing days and a favorite of Diablos/Guerreros owner Alfredo Harp
Helu,
but the most surprising firing would have to be Dan Firova's reported
ouster in
Monclova.

Owner
Gerardo Benavides has proven
with both the Acereros and Puebla that he has an affinity for hiring
managers
with Major League Baseball backgrounds such as Wally Backman, who was
brought
in to Monclova for a disastrous term last despite the former Mets
second
baseman only having enough prior experience speaking Spanish to order
off the
menu at Taco Bell.Hired last December,
Firova was seen as a compromise choice of sorts, possessing a
less-extensive
MLB background but also a Mexican-American who'd both played and
managed
successfully in the Liga in past years (winning Manager of the Year
laurels in
2000 with the Quintana Roo Tigres).Language and experience in baseball south of the border were not
concerns with the former catcher from Texas.

The
Acereros finished a
disappointing 29-27 in the Spring 2018 regular season, coming in fourth
in the
LMB North before a first-round playoff exit at the hands of Monterrey.While fault for failing to meet expectations
may lie more with a dissension-ridden clubhouse of transient
ballplayers
yo-yoing between Monclova and Puebla (star second baseman Manny
Rodriguez left
the team and was subsequently traded to Quintana Roo) or a pitching
staff that
allowed more men to reach first base than Stormy Daniels (Josh Lowey
notwithstanding), but it's easier to scapegoat a manager and that
appears to be
what may happening with Firova.His
firing, which has been reported in the Mexican baseball media, had not
been
officially confirmed by either the Acereros or MXL offices as this
story was
written and no replacement has been announced.

The
firing of Sandoval
in Oaxaca was not so surprising.The
49-year-old Los Mochis native spent 14 seasons between 2000 and 2013
with
Mexico City and remained as a coach or manager in the Diablos system
before
owner Alfredo Harp Helu send him to manage the billionaire's other Liga
team in
Oaxaca this year.The Guerreros serve a
similar, if not as direct, role to the Diablos that the Kansas City A's
used to
serve as the New York Yankees' de facto
Class AAA affiliate in the American League (which both teams
conveniently
played in).Sandoval took Oaxaca's
perennial red-headed stepchild team to a last-place finish in the LMB
South at
22-35.While he had more talent than
Castro in Dos Laredos or Jimenez in Tabasco had to work with (including
such
notables as Yuniesky Betancourt, Adan Munoz and Erick Rodriguez),
Sandoval's
roster reflected the old wartime song, "They're Either Too Young or Too
Old," and sank out of contention early.

Sandoval
will be
replaced at the Guerreros helm by Cuban Jose Alvarez, the former
Durango
manager who was recently hired to manage Mazatlan this winter in the
Mexican
Pacific League.Alvarez won two Gulf
Coast League rookieball pennants and one Class A Florida State League
title
between 1986 and 1990 managing in the Dodgers system.He spent 2017 as the helmsman in Durango,
keeping the newborn Generales at .500 while the team played their first
month
on the road while their ballpark at home was being readied, but the
team ran
out of steam the rest of the season as players missed paychecks as the
schedule
played out (many were traded to save costs) and Durango missed the
playoffs